1. Holiday is coming — Machu Picchu to the left series

Never have a sense of stability. Growing up dragging my stuff between my mom’s house and my grandparents’ house, I don’t think I know what stability means. Sometimes you CAN take it doesn’t mean you SHOULD take it, but most of time people just don’t know the boundary. One absurd scenario I constantly pictured when I was a kid was what things I would bring with me if my room suddenly caught on fire. I never questioned my ability to stay calm and organized if I was asked to grab stuff and be gone in a second — because I always had a list. I knew what I treasured but it’s OK to let it go and I also knew what I had to keep even when I had nothing else left. You know what’s the No.1 on my list back then? Take a wild guess and don’t laugh. It’s my schoolbag (hats off to the Chinese education system).

Last Sunday I was having brunch with a friend at Aberdeen Street Social. We arrived pretty early but still had to sit on the bar counter as all the other tables were booked. There was a very stupid design that the counter was separated by a few metal hooks. It would be a cram if two people sitting within two hooks and would be too far away if sitting at different booths. I told her I will ship all my stuff from my apartment to a storage room before head to Peru and will look for a new place when I’m back. The rent in Hong Kong is crazy. I’m not paying that for nothing for a month. She looked at me, “well, hope you find this drifting life not so hard”. I did a quick self-reflection and realized it never occurred to me when I made that decision. Now when I was thinking about it, I did feel kind of drifting. I guess I know where all this comes from.

For this coming holiday, it’s both expected and unexpected. I planned a two-week trip to Peru back in January. Usually I wouldn’t book so early but in order to secure a permit to do Inca Trail, I booked my flights as soon as the local tour agencies started to sell trekking permits for this year. This trail leads to THE well-known Machu Picchu and the best time to do it is during the dry season. The reason I chose end of August for this trip was also to match my work schedule. My previous firm followed Australian reporting time so that period was just after the financial year end and before another quarterly reporting deadline. I once heard that my manager had accumulated over 40 days annual leave (I know this may mean nothing to you Europeans. But trust me, this is a mega number in Hong Kong) and she told me half-jokingly that people who matter to this firm didn’t take leave. I actually gathered quite a lot of courage over a few weeks before I finally checked with her if it was OK to have a holiday at that time. But what I didn’t expect back then was I can extend this holiday to almost one month.

My then manager was right. People who took holidays usually won’t be back.